Instant Vegetarian Kimchi (No Fish or Seafood)

I love all kinds of pickles and fermented products, in fact, who wouldn’t? The infused fermented sourness and saltiness, sometimes sweetness, just go so great with anything: grilled, fried food, barbecue, or simply over white rice or pasta. Korean Kimchi is one of my all time favorite garnish, along with other pickling dishes, to the point that I would keep a large jar in my kitchen every time.

There are so many ways to make Kimchi, even in Korea where it’s native. But in the US, there are not many place that sell Kimchi except at the oriental markets, kinda far away though. Surprisingly, my local Walmart does carry one though in to salad section, strange. Still, the taste is not that desirable, I mean not even comparable to what you would have in Korea or Korean friend.

Another thing with store bought is that you can’t control what’s in the jar. So say you are passing our that delicious Kimchi on a grilling afternoon, but one of your party member happen to be vegan, or allergic to seafood, hate fish, or simply just can’t tolerate the extreme heat. Should you skip your precious Kimchi on them? No, you don’t have to. Not if you have your own vegan Kimchi, or make your own not-so-spicy kimchi. See my point !!

Most of the time, you would hesitate on the long and tedious times for brining and then fermented kimchi. With this quick kimchi, we could reduce the soaking times by using warm water with much more salt then usual.

Soak napa cabbage with warm water and extra salt for reducing time

For the yearning fermenting taste, I get away with adding Gochujang. Now most traditional Kimchi won’t have this, but since Gochujang already has chili and fermented rice (what we used in making traditional Kimchi) plus already fermented soybean, which would make up for the ferment taste without actual time spending. Now if you are short of Gochujang, use a combined amount of Sriracha and organic miso instead, taste different but good too. I always love to vary the flavors.

I also add some apple cider vinegar to have just a little bit hint of sourness, very mild so it won’t overpower the overall taste.

Most of traditional Kimchi would have some sort of sea product in their sauce like dried shrimp, dried anchovies, anchovy sauce, fish sauce, etc. So to be vegan compatible, I used a trick in Vietnamese cuisine for vegetarian fish sauce, which making the sauce out of pineapple and soy sauce. Then add a little piece of kelp (which is a sea algae, you can skip this) to bring some sea essence umami.

Finally some fruits’ flesh. I used plum and pear, but you could use apple or something similar. I heard some Koreans would use persimmon too, but I live in the mid west so it’s not native in this season.

You could just salted and make kimchi with just napa cabbage alone, or add the side veggies like I did in this recipe. I usually add some daikon radish, carrot, and scallion or leek for some extra flavor. Shred them for quicker soak in this instant version. So, if you have good knife skill and can multi-task, this whole kimchi making process would cost about 30-40 minutes, start to finish.

The taste? It tasted good immediately, better the next day, and perfect after that. Awh, it’s the kind of good where you’re think it’s perfect only to find out its superior the next time you taste. Yum, can’t have enough kimchi. Try it and tell me your result. I could always use some suggestions.

Recipe for Instant vegetarian Kimchi

Course: Garnish

Cuisine: Korean

Prep Time: 35minutes

Cook Time: 8minutes

Total Time: 43minutes

Servings: 2lb

Author: Victoria

Totally adjustable and vegan compatible of the ever infamous Korean Kimchi, ready in 30-40 minutes include soaking brine and ferment. No shrimp, fish or any seafood being used.

Spicy mixture - adjust to your tolerant level

Instructions

Cut off the root and hardening stem part of napa cabbage, then cut it into 1 1/2 inch - 2 inches sections.

Use your hand to separate all the layers and wash them clean. Place them in a large container.

Brine

Boil 5 cups of water with 1/3 cup salt.

When all salt dissolved, remove from heat, let cool down to 122 F (about 5 minutes).

Pour the warm brine into cabbage container, use a spatula or some thing to stir around so that all pieces are loosen and in contact with the brine.

Apply some pressure to make sure the cabbage stayed down. (I used a heavy water bowl over a crossed skewers).

After soaking with brine for 10 minutes, stir to flip the cabbage upside down, again, keep them down and soak for another 5 minutes or so.

The napa cabbage should now be more bendable without breaking but still preserving their crispiness.

Fill the container with water, and rinse off all the brine once, or twice if you feel them too salty.

Drain off all excess water, you probably have to squeeze them a little, and place them on a basket or cooling rack to drip off excess water.

Shred all other accompany veggies like turnip/daikon radish, carrot. Cut off the white stem, and chop the green scallion.

Making Kimchi sauce, the vegan way

If you have a juicer, just throw the pineapple into it for the juice. If not, puree it and squeeze with a cheesecloth to extract as much juice as you can. You would need about 1/4 cup of pineapple juice.

In a small sauce pan, add a small piece of kelp into simmered pineapple juice with 1 Tbsp sugar, 1 Tbsp salt, and 1 Tbsp soy sauce. Stir to make sure all sugar/salt are dissolving. Reduce to about 1/4 cup. Remove sauce pan from heat and let cool off naturally.

Kimchi will be fermented (hence. more sour) when left outside. Depend on the temperature, it might take a day (upper 70F) or 2 (~70F) to get to the mildly sour stage. You can slow down this process by leaving them in the fridge. So if you like yours a little sour, leave them out, otherwise just store in fridge up to 1 week for no taste changing. Thought mildly sour kimchi taste better with BBQ.

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